Shopify VS WooCommerce: Battle between Two Leading Ecommerce Platforms

by GowebbbayJuly 11, 2017

Every business wish to have their presence online these days, but one and most important concern comes before creating the online presence is which ecommerce platform to choose? Which platform goes well with the requirements and functionality of your business? Well, don’t worry at all. Let me tell you the best 2 ecommerce platform that mostly people use this days to create their online store- Shopify and WooCommerce.

My company (Gowebbaby.Com) is a development agency that usually builds websites on Shopify platform. But potential customers and our clients are also tempted by WooCommerce, WordPress’ most popular eCommerce platform.

In this post I compare Shopify with WooCommerce. Which is the most flexible? Which looks the best? Which offers the best value for money? Which has the best, most advanced features? Which, significantly, makes the most money?

Shopify VS WooCommerce: Design

For websites, design is everything. Users simply don’t trust a website that doesn’t have the right appealing or doesn’t function as well as it could.

How WooCommerce does design?

As with many other aspects of the WooCommerce experience, when it comes to aesthetics the world is your oyster – you just have to put the hours in.

Because WooCommerce is a plugin created by WordPress developers WooThemes, you might also want to purchase a theme affiliated with them, however the plugin can be incorporated with any WP theme. There are only five free themes, but nearly 50 accessible for a one-off fee of $79, or $139 with Adobe Photoshop options. There’s also the substitute to purchase all of the 52 themes for $399 to play with in your own time.

How Shopify does design?

Themes are one of greatest selling points of Shopify. In my opinion, they look totally great even incredible. Shopify comes with 11 different free design templates, each of which is mobile responsive, and has a variety of different coloring options. All of these templates have a fashionably sleek and clean aesthetic which makes it perfect for new, cutting-edge websites.

The designs of Shopify are not created in-house; they are outsourced to a group of professional web designers who make sure they are as current and as attractive as they can be.

There are even more paid templates available on the Shopify store which cost around $150. Again, these look great. There’s no doubt that this platform is king when it comes to visual appeal.

Shopify VS WooCommerce: Price

Every webmaster wants slightly more bang for their buck, but the two platforms have slightly different methods to pricing:

How WooCommerce prices up?

WooCommerce is absolutely free. If you have a website that’s powered by WordPress, you can add this open source plugin to your site completely free of charge.

Now, you will be forgiven for thinking that sounds a little too good to be true. Unfortunately it is. To make the most of WooCommerce, you need to add a series of different ‘extensions’, which we will discuss in the features section below.

Many of these extensions, some of which come as standard on Shopify, will be free because WordPress is an open source project but there are also many essential apps that will set you back between $5 and $500 a year each, depending on your needs.

While for some these supplementary charges are a hassle and can occasionally turn out prohibitively expensive, they do offer a large degree of flexibility. Users can pay for exactly what they use – and uninstall any features that they feel are not offering value for money.

WooCommerce – Hosting!

Another thing that needs paying for when using a WooCommerce site is hosting. While Shopify is a hosted solution, which means that all security and hosting issues are taken care of, if you’re running WooCommerce you need to find a partner. This isn’t much of a problem, and there are some excellent solutions out there, but you will have to pay up to $700 a year, depending on the size and ambition of your website. What’s more, you will have shell out decent amounts of cash with the intention of enjoying the same rapid response times that Shopify websites enjoy.

How Shopify prices up?

Shopify can boast a much more conventional pricing structure. It has a sliding scale of packages which offer users a range of different features – Starter ($14), Basic ($29), Professional ($79) and Unlimited ($179).

Shopify is a hosted option with a more comprehensive set of features, and so any issues such as hosting or payment processes will be sorted as soon as you sign up.

Whether it will be as cost-effective as WooCommerce depends on your specific circumstances – for instance, its 2% transaction fee on the Basic plan will be more than smaller sites will pay on its rival platform – but there’s no doubting that it offers simpler solutions out of the box.

Shopify VS WooCommerce: Features and eCommerce trickery

While both platforms’ approaches to pricing are different, they’re relatively similar when it comes to giving your eCommerce site that little va va voom. Unlike a platform like Bigcommerce, Shopify and WooCommerce don’t attack the user with plenty of toys and tricks.

However, both have desirable app stores that can be raided for the latest money-making features.

How WooCommerce helps you sell?

As open source software, WordPress is well known for allowing third party developers to create popular extensions on its sites. WooCommerce taps into that further by offering lots of interesting and exciting additions. Whether you want to easily edit aesthetics, sell on Facebook, ramp up email marketing techniques, understand user behavior or quite frankly do anything else, you’ll be able to.

However, it may struggle when it comes to more specialized integration solutions. Larger companies with more specific needs, for instance, might find that it doesn’t integrate well with their company-level software.

How Shopify helps you sell?

Although you will probably need to install apps to make the most of the platform, Shopify offers significantly more free options. From the very start Shopify allows you to download free apps to:

Offer gift cards (on Professional and Unlimited)

Create discount codes

Include individual product reviews

Install cart recovery systems (on Professional and Unlimited)

Sell on Facebook

Amend shipping options

List different product variations

Import products using CSV files

Print orders

Some of these free features, such as shipping options, Facebook selling and CSV uploads will set you back up to £500 to get started on WooCommerce.

In addition to the basic options, there are hundreds of different features that can be installed from the Shopify App Store. Like with WordPress, you positively won’t short of inspiration. Nor will you be bemoaning the apps’ poor quality.

Shopify VS WooCommerce: Support

There’s also the not flimsy concern of technical support. Shopify is well-known for the high quality of its customer care. Each customer can relish 24/7 access to a customer adviser in case they have any queries or issues.

Because WooCommerce is, in use, a free platform there is no strict customer care. Users are left to figure it out themselves – even though there are hundreds of thousands of like-minded people on forums who are happy to lend a hand if you are confused.

Shopify VS WooCommerce: SEO

Any website that wants to make a splash needs strong SEO. Luckily, both contenders here have a lot going for them.

How WooCommerce helps with SEO?

WordPress is mainly a content creation platform and it’s distinguished by SEO experts as one of the most reliable options. It’s easy to add and edit body content as well as Meta information to ensure that your pages have a strong chance of ranking for specific pages.

Compared to Shopify, its blog is better organized and archives posts better – giving you a better chance of making a splash with your content creation methods.

How Shopify helps with SEO?

Shopify may come second when it comes to blog effectiveness, there’s no shame in the way that it presents content. It too handles basic SEO practices like Meta information and site copy with ease. So long as your business is producing quality blogs, there’s no reason to suggest you won’t enjoy great results and strong user engagement.

Site wide, there are plenty of ways that Shopify proves to beat WooCommerce in the SEO game. It’s actually renowned by developers like me as having some of the cleanest code out there and natural linking structure, which offers a smooth user experience and in turn enhances visibility in search engine rankings.

What’s more, Shopify is fast. Because it’s a hosted platform that’s built on huge infrastructure, Shopify offers each of its webmasters rapid loading pages (80 milliseconds, to be exact). As a result, shops stand a better chance of ranking well and a better chance of leading customers to conversions.

While WooCommerce clients could feasibly run a site that’s runs as fast as the Shopify alternative, it would be expensive.

Shopify VS WooCommerce: Conclusion

Comparisons such as this are never cut and dry. When I talk with customers my recommendations always vary depending on their particular situations. WooCommerce is a fine option that facilitates webmasters to create high-functioning, quality sites, but generally, I find Shopify offers somewhat extra: faster, cutting-edge and with a better visual, it is one of the best platforms out there. Also, Shopify is certainly simpler to implement and a lot more protected. The concern of credit card SSL certificates when using WordPress based sites can be expensive and complex. In case you want to switch from WooCommerce to Shopify, there’s a nice walk-through guide here.